


smirking commentariat

by youcouldmakealife



Series: between the teeth [26]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5468399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Can we get dinner?” Jake asks, and when David hesitates, “I really think we need to talk.”</p><p>“About?” David asks.</p><p>“Let’s do this over dinner,” Jake says, and then, “Please.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	smirking commentariat

The media stuff toward the end of summer is a bit of a free for all, the media’s chance to get a lot of leaders in a central location, have a chance to talk about offseason shuffling, hirings, firings, free agent pick ups, chances for the coming season. It’s generally captains who have the unspoken obligation to be there, some As, maybe a couple of star players, but Dave asks him to show up.

“It’s not like you have to go out of your way,” Dave says, when David makes a token protest. “They’re going to want to ask you about that contract, and it’s probably better if you address it head on before the start of the season.”

“I did,” David says.

“You gave three lines to TSN, try again, David,” Dave says.

David sighs, but Dave has a point, and it’s better to answer a lot of questions once than the same questions over and over from different outlets, which is exasperating enough when it’s simple ones, and exhausting when it’s questions on things he doesn’t want to talk about. It’s the reason he snapped about Jake in public, and when he was facing down the slump last season, the last thing he needed was getting asked almost every day why he couldn’t score, as if he had an answer.

 _in nyc 4 media_ Jake texts him, the day before, and then _u goin?_. When David responds an hour later with _Dave says I have to._ he immediately responds with _Daves the best :)_. It’s not like David forgets that Dave is Jake’s agent too — he’s personally the agent of multiple guys, and his agency’s rota has grown exponentially in the last few years because he’s getting a reputation for securing the best and brightest before they’re even drafted, but it’s weird to think about. 

David wonders if Dave acts the way he does with David with Jake, that mix of exasperated and bossy. He doubts it. Jake’s probably an easy client to have. Wonders who Dave was rooting for, when the Calder race was on. It was probably Jake. Jake’s easy to like — even David couldn’t hold out, as much as he wanted to. David isn’t, he’s been informed he isn’t, but he’s pretty sure Jake likes him anyway. Loves him, or at least he said as much, though that was months ago, so even if it was true, it probably isn’t anymore.

The first day of the media circus David goes where Dave tells him, when he tells him, shifting a little awkwardly because he doesn’t know anyone. He recognizes plenty of people — he’s a few feet away from one of CBC’s reporters, busy asking some preliminary questions of Sven Olsen, who’s wearing a shirt so green it hurts David’s eyes. But he doesn’t _know_ anyone until he sees Kurmazov. He’s recognizable even facing away, discussing something with one of the NBC guys, the one who always asks David about Jake when they play the Panthers, like the question hadn’t stopped being relevant once their rookie years were over, at least as far as the media was aware.

David walks over, circling around the NBC guy and politely standing a few feet back, in Kurmazov’s view, until he wraps up the conversation a minute later and walks over to David.

“Hey,” David says. “Kurm—”

“Next time you call me Kurmazov I am making you babysit my daughters,” Kurmazov — Oleg — threatens.

David blanches. “How was Russia?” he asks. “Oleg.”

“Good,” Oleg says, and David doesn’t know if he means Russia or he’s commenting on David’s use of his first name. “Hear you made friend.”

“Huh?” David asks. “Oh, Kiro.”

“Kiro,” Oleg says. “You call him Kiro, call Slava Vladislav, call me Kurmazov.”

“I’m calling you Oleg,” David protests.

Oleg makes a noise David knows is sceptical, then reaches out and pats David’s shoulder twice.

“David,” David hears in what registers as Jake’s voice, and David turns around. Jake’s standing with Kevin Dempsey, the captain of the Canucks. Maybe he knows him through Markson, though for all David knows they’ve just met today and Jake’s already befriended him.

Oleg nudges David, a weird little smile on his face.

“What?” David asks.

“Go play,” Oleg says, and David flushes, because he doesn’t know if it was meant to sound euphemistic, but it did. A year ago David wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but now he knows that Oleg knows how to use a winking emoticon, so he can’t be sure.

“You want to—” David starts, isn’t sure how to finish. Meet Jake? It feels weird to offer.

“Have to talk to NBC more,” Oleg says. 

“I can—” David says.

“Go play,” Oleg repeats.

“Hey,” Jake says, when David comes over, pulling him into a hug. “David, Kevin, Kevin, David.”

“Hey,” Dempsey says. “Was just telling Jake terrible stories about his future coach.”

David frowns, because there hasn’t been any talk of firing Rutger, and there wouldn’t be, since he coached them to a Cup just over a year ago and they had an acceptable exit in May of this year, but then he remembers Rutger got the nod to coach Team USA in the Olympics.

“Cool,” he says. Jake must have just gotten back from Team USA training camp, but he didn’t say a word about it, even though they’ve kept texting.

“How are you?” Jake says. “I haven’t seen you since July.”

Dempsey gives them an odd look David ignores. Even if they haven’t seen one another, they’ve texted pretty steadily since. David’s inclined to think Jake’s trying to change the subject, and he doesn’t protest it, because he doesn’t want to get into talk about the Olympics right now. Or at all, preferably, but he knows it’s going to come eventually as the season progresses. He wonders if the NBC guy is going to ask him how it feels to be one upped by Jake Lourdes yet again. He probably will, so David has to figure out a better answer than pointing out the differences in player depth by nation, because the last thing he needs is to alienate the Islanders fanbase by being construed as Anti-American. He’s sure Dave could formulate something suitably noncommittal for him.

A young woman cuts in before David responds. “Mr. Lourdes?” she says.

“That’s my dad,” Jake says.

Dempsey groans. “Kid, seriously?” he asks.

Jake shrugs. “What’s up?” he asks her. “NBC?”

“ESPN,” she says. “Can you—”

“Sure,” he says. “I’ll catch up with you later?” he asks, and David nods.

He makes small talk with Dempsey for a few minutes, mostly a comparison of the Kurmazovs. Oleg’s younger brother sounds like the kind of guy who’d hang out with Benson, but David doesn’t know him, so maybe Dempsey’s just painting an unflattering picture, though he grins as he talks, like he thinks they’re good stories.

They get interrupted by CBC, who snatches Dempsey up, and then David mistakenly makes eye contact with the NBC guy, and that starts an exhausting few hours. The media asks him a lot about his contract. Many guys asking have a little grin when they do, the one that means they think David got played. That Dave was right, and they all think he’s stupid. It doesn’t matter. Dave did what David asked, and David knows he made the right decision, long-term. It’s going to be one of those stories the media backpedals on, pretends they had the right idea all along, the way they acted, after Jake was drafted first, like it was a foregone conclusion all along.

Jake texts him toward the end of the day with _where r u?_ , and shows up about thirty seconds after David lets him know.

“Can we get dinner?” Jake asks, and when David hesitates, “I really think we need to talk.”

“About?” David asks.

“Let’s do this over dinner,” Jake says, and then, “Please.”

“Okay,” David says.

They go to a nearby place David likes, and it’s the lull between lunch and dinner, so they have the place mostly to themselves, especially since Jake asked for a spot in the corner of the room.

“What’s up?” David asks, once they’ve ordered.

“I want to apologise about the stuff with Volkov,” Jake says.

“It’s okay,” David says.

“It really isn’t,” Jake says. “I was a dick to him, and to you.”

David shrugs a little.

“Even if you were fucking him,” Jake starts.

“I’m not,” David protests.

“Even if you were,” Jake says, “You were right. I’m not your boyfriend, so. It wasn’t really any of my business if you were.”

David looks down at the table. “It’s okay,” he repeats.

“I just,” Jake starts, then laughs self-consciously. “Okay, I’ve been rehearsing this but I’m probably going to fuck it up, so can you be patient with me?”

David swallows. “Okay,” he says.

"I really want to make things work with you, but if you’re — I think it probably isn’t healthy for either of us if I keep waiting for you to change your mind, so. I guess I’m saying I’m letting you go.”

David feels numb all over. “Oh,” David says, voice small.

“Do we actually have a chance here?” Jake says. “Like, right now, would you be okay with being my boyfriend?”

David thinks about how small he felt last year, and even more, how badly he played. He thought he could play well through anything, and he can, generally, can play through minor injury, frustration, anger, disappointment. He couldn’t play through that, apparently, and maybe that’s not fair to say, maybe it was totally unrelated, but David wants this to be his year, he _knows_ this will be his year, and he refuses to risk it.

“No,” David says. “I — not right now.”

“But not never, right?” Jake asks. He’s smiling, but it looks wrong on his face.

David hesitates, and the smile drops off Jake’s face.

“Not never,” David says finally.

“Okay,” Jake says. “I. Not never then. But I think maybe I’ll try that letting go thing.”

“Can you still text me?” David asks quietly. “Or is that not letting me go?”

“It probably isn’t?” Jake says, and David’s stomach drops a little more. “But. I can anyway, if you want me to.”

David should probably say no, then, make things easier for Jake, for them both. “I do,” David says. “Want you to.”

“Okay, then,” Jake says. “I will.”

“Okay,” says David, and makes himself smile.


End file.
